AMD brings Ontario Fusion forward, delays Llano

AMD has brought forward the launch of its Fusion offering codenamed Ontario and at the same time has delayed its Llano Fusion chip. Llano is delayed because of 32 nanometre yield problems. Llano is being built by GloFo (GlobalFoundries) on a 32 nanometre process while Ontario will be built by TSMC on a 40 nanometre process.

Dirk Meyer, CEO of AMD, speaking at an analyst conference call, said that Ontario, an APU which includes the Bobcat CPU core, “will be a game changer”. He said that AMD expected Ontario to be the first Fusion product to come to market, will ship in the fourth quarter of this year, ahead of schedule.

But AMD is delaying its Llano Fusion offering – that’s because of insufficient yields on 32 nanometres. Llano, Meyer said, will be pushed back a couple of months but shipments will happen in the first half of 2011.

He said that AMD had switched its efforts to Ontario with its timeline “changing quite dramatically”

AMD, said Meyer, has three different Fusion designs in four packages for notebooks and desktops. Ontario is targeted at low cost, low power netbook and small form factor category. There will be two designs under the Llano codename. Ontario will ship for revenues in the fourth quarter.

There’s still robust demand for enterprise servers, said Meyer. But Magny Cours only became available in June. On the client PC side, that’s AMD’s lowest priority, said Meyer.

Meyer said demand for GPU offerings in the quarter were very strong, but were constrained by supplies. He said that in the second half of the year, demand will remain healthy and AMD expects GPU constraints to ease.

He said that AMD expected to see server products start to deliver serious revenues in the third quarter.

AMD, he said, had more than tripled the number of Vision branded products. He claimed that Vision was the most successful launch in AMD’s history with 130 design wins across multiple prices.

He said that the Bulldozer core will sample second half of this year on track for launch next year.